What's your weekly mileage? That is probably the most important factor.

Next is your gait. We can't tell you anything without seeing your run, preferably on video recorded in slow motion. Did you try seeing a sports PT specializing in gait analysis? Or a running coach? Or both? You probably should. They'd probably have you do drills at home, and/or teach you to activate correct muscle groups while running.

Actually there is one thing we can tell you, and that is to keep your cadence around 90. If you are running easy that should still be at 90 cadence and with a good gait. Just keep the stride shorter and the push-off light to remain in the easy zone. Mentioning this because many runners shuffle when they run easy, and that's pretty terrible on your legs and feet.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...%20part%201;#2548394

Can you elaborate here? I am actually curious on this. I feel many people who say this are "fast" runners even at their person "slow" pace. E.g. they run 8:30's as easy pace vs my 10:30 easy pace. Gait will be very different 8:30 vs 10:30. I literally couldnt take short enough steps (I am 6'2" so long legs). I can get my cadence up rather easily running 9 min or less but once I run "slow" I definitely feel like I shuffle.

^^

BarryP plan is fantastic... if you ease into it, and got no gait problems or injury history. Or else you'll just end up injured and frustrated.

tl;dr: BarryP has you running 6 times per week on a 3:2:1 pattern. If the long easy weekend run is let's say 90 minutes, then do 3 easy mid week runs for 60 minutes each, and 2 hard tempo runs for 30 minutes each.

Contemporary wisdom is to keep the easy runs in zone 2, and hard runs in zone 4, and to avoid zone 3. Right?

Obviously you'd start with whatever run length you are comfortable with, and gradually extend the mileage as your race day approaches.

Buuuut if you have fundamental gait issues, you should look at that first before committing to a bunch of mileage.

Not sure that I can. It is hard to explain, and really easy to show. Tighten the abs and glutes, keep a nice kick going (vs. a shuffle), keep the turnover high, just don't pushoff as hard, and that will automatically keep your strides short. It takes concentration and deliberate muscle engagement to stick to good gait but easy effort.

It took me ages to figure this out. Before I figured it out, my legs felt great after a tempo run and they felt beat up after "easy" runs. That's because my easy gait was crap.

Running better is simple.

Run more.

Do strides.

Sometimes run faster.

Sometimes run slower.

Run more.

That's it.

Ignore the rest of the BS.

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https://markmcdermott.substack.com

Your angst about the run sounds like my angst about the swim.

As background, I used to be a pretty competitive 1500M runner in college and am a part-time coach (on the side from my real work and being a triathlete).

If you could post a video of your running form, that would help a lot.

Without that, it sounds like you are beginning to think about some really good things, especially the upper body rotation and the heel strike.

On the upper body rotation, it will take awhile to make it feel like you aren't a robot. Just focus on your hands going back and forth in what feels robotic, but eventually and slowly will become more natural.

On the heel strike, try taking more steps instead of longer strides. Also, during your warm ups, do 3 x 50 yards of heel to butt kicks and do this before each workout. Each workout to get yourself more comfortable bringing your heels back. Also, lean your body slightly forward while running so that this forces you to put your front foot down faster and naturally forces you to push off with your foot getting more power. Just a very slight lean, very slight. It will hopefully help you go from having a heel strike to a more forward position which causes a more mid-foot strike. Perhaps as you start doing this, get a new pair of shoes and watch carefully at the tread wear on the bottom after each run to see if you see more mid strike type wear vs heel strike wear.

Also, you are doing intervals on a treadmill. Stop. I don't think it helps. There is bound to be a local group that meets up at a track somewhere within 20 miles of you. You will get more out of it on a track once a week and with others than on a treadmill.

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2018 Races: IM Santa Rosa, Vineman Monte Rio, Lake Tahoe 70.3

To counter all of the fancy terms that have been thrown out in this thread so far ... and I'm going to assume that you have *no history of running injuries*.

The below two quotes from other ST folks pretty are much spot on (i.e., don't overthink it.)

"Stop thinking like an anal retentive trigeek and think like a runner."

"Just get out and run, sometimes long, sometimes short, sometime fast, but mostly slow"

The principle of the above two quotes was how I was able to go from a 4:43 marathoner to a 3:00:xx marathoner (over a handful of years). Interval, speekwork, gait, strides, cadence ... blah blah blah. Just get some volume under your legs consistently over many months/years then you can start thinking about those other things. Concentrating on pure volume will produce the greatest gain. All the other things will get you to the final 1-5% of your limit.

Don't overthink it!!

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__________________________________________________________________________
My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

I think there is a lot of good advice here about training and form. The one think that really helped me improve as a runner was reading somewhere that a run is really like a very controlled fall. Now that might sounds crazy but what this really means is that you should lean ever so slightly forward and you will naturally take a running stride. The slight lean (not a bend) helps propel you more forward rather than up and helps you land more midfoot/forefoot than heal and will naturally lengthen your stride. You might want to try visualizing this next time you run.

Are you fat?

I think running on treadmill is actually significantly superior than doing intervals on a track. I've been doing them on both for awhile, and I'm concluding TM > track for the following reasons:

1. Less injuries. The softer deck of the treadmill allows you to hammer hard with less risk of overly straining something. For lower-run mileage triathletes, this is a big deal, as your cardio and leg power can exceed your tendon strength (from cycling) and you can really set yourself back due to the higher impacts on your tendons on roads/tracks. Plus, triathletes aren't racing the 400, so you don't need to be fully conditioned to maximum run speed impact- you are mainly training your VO2max and neuromuscular leg stride speed on the TM.

2. Easy to do hill sprints - these are great on a TM, and also really benefit leg muscular endurance for running.

3. Better pacing - It's eminently doable to ratchet down pace/mile on a TM from, say, 6:06/mi to 6:03, to 6:00/mi, across multiple intervals, and you WILL notice the difference. On a track, that can be hard to do.

4. Faster leg turnover on a 0% TM - At least for me, most TMs set at 0% require easier effort to run on than outdoor 0%. (I have to add at least 1% to equal outdoor run effort.) However, you can benefit from this as a sort of low-impact neuromuscular training for high leg turnover on VO2max intervals, without the big stresses of hammering downhills.



I will however admit that for me, on pretty much all TMs, if I did them all at 0% on the TM, and then expected to run the same speed/effort outdoors even on a flat track, I'd be in for a rude awakening - I need to set the TMs at 1% (sometimes 2%) to mimic the effort of running outdoors. (Might be something about the moving belt making it easier on the TM)

You got great advice from some seasoned folks here. I may not be one of them, but totally agree with this. Run, run, run, & when you're done, run some more. The slower you run (not turtle slow), the less likely injuries will surface.

I also think it's that "simple."

agree 100%

also a NYC runner here - don't worry about much, just go out and run. every day. Run everyday. Sometimes longer, sometimes laughably short - jog to the pool, etc. Just run!

nickwhite wrote:

Are you fat?

Fat...well, never considered myself that way until I started doing triathlons. Average, probably. Average+, maybe.

This was last weekend, you decide:

Finisher: http://i65.tinypic.com/2cr60sy.jpg

Run 1: http://i65.tinypic.com/2ex0br7.jpg

Run 2: http://i68.tinypic.com/2mys28g.jpg

I'm in super dangerous territory here, but I'd not say you were fat. That was my way of saying any extra weight you haul around makes running SO MUCH HARDER. Generally, the lower your BMI, the easier it is for running. Looking at those pictures, you seem to be taking small-ish steps, maybe shuffling? Were you roasted from the swim and bike?

Haha, I'm laughing at your light treading. I have a pretty realistic view of myself - I'm 5'11 and small is never a word that has ever been used to describe me and probably never will. I've always been athletic/active, but until my recent entries into endurance events did I find myself so much "thicker" and squeezing into XL gear. (I'm usually a Medium!)

Could losing 15# help my running? Absolutely.

I also want to have the form and be sure I'm running correctly.

Always have to tread lightly when it concerns image. :)

Think of running like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. With certain exceptions where form is just insane (like phoebe in friends insane), worrying about form is for when the toothpaste is almost empty and you're trying to squeeze the last bit out. With where you're at, there's a lot of toothpaste to get by squeezing anywhere in the tube and you're going to get big gains just from that. So DON'T WORRY ABOUT FORM (this doesn't mean you don't address it).

Run more. (Build endurance)
Do strides (works on form automatically, and will make slower paces feel easier)
Go faster sometimes (don't worry about exact number, sometimes push harder)
Go slower sometimes (most of the time really)
Run more.

Those 5 things will get most of your gains. I'm not kidding, doing those 5 things took me from a 3:27 debut to 2:47. The anal stuff was what I needed to get the last 8 minutes to go into the 2:30s. DON'T WORRY about that stuff till those first 5 lose effectiveness. They will make running better.

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https://markmcdermott.substack.com

I got back into running after a 12 year break three years ago. To not get hurt and not be at max HR I was doing 11:30 miles. That quickly dropped to 10:30 after several months and plateaued.

I was in a catch 22 as I didn't really want to run because it was embarrassingly slow but also needed to run more to not be so slow. I always had an excuse for not doing more than 15 miles a week.

This past winter I did a run focus and slowly built up mileage. I peaked at 45mpw running 6 days a week and did 30+ for a little over 4 months. I was amazing how quickly the time dropped. I'm down to 25mpw now due to increased biking and zillion degree heat but have kept up improved pace and better yet am finishing runs feeling stronger than I ever have.

I'm looking forward to cooler weather to up mileage again and keep improving. M

So my n=1 is all the advice about running more is spot on. Slowly work up to mileage and be consistent. Every day go for a run.

Yup this.

Don't kid yourself. Running 2 - 3 times a week, 20 - 30km is going to make very little difference to your running. If you need to back off the pace and do all your running easy to avoid injuries, fatigue, demotivation, then do it, just focus on running lots.

I think that the rule of thumb is that for every pound of extra weight you are carrying, it costs you 2-3 second per mile. So if you think you have 15 pounds to lose, that is 30-45 seconds per mile. Over a OLY tri of 10K; that is significant. IMO, getting to proper body comp to race/run your best is low hanging fruit--doesn't require extra training or freaky uber athlete genetics to get faster. You couple that with most prescribed way to run faster on this thread "run 6 days a week" and no doubt you will see improvement.

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leslie myers
http://www.foodsensenow.com

I think that I agree.

You know that you have gotten better when your default workout choice will be running.

Definitely run more. I am not too big on strides, but a tempo run once every two weeks is a good thing. The rest is just building up mileage.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Okay, I can help on this. And only because I was you (I kno that didn't sound right).

Run more

BUT, make sure to take baby steps on the volume. You're a bigger bodied person, and you'll take a pounding. Consistency is key. Just keep at it.

With that extra running, the weight will come off. That will bring along speed. Your form will come with the increased mileage, as will your gait.

Run more, run smart, and everything will work its way out. But its a multiple year plan.

I'm 6' 220lbs former hockey player getting into tris. Was a rude awakening. I've never been "fat" but always bigger. It's a significant hinderance to being a runner.

I would say it is very hard and completely unnecessary to have 90 cadence when running 10 min miles. There is no magic cadence that works for everyone and def not when running slowly. Unless you are overstriding I wouldn't change the cadence at all. When I run my easy miles 7-8 min pace I have on average 82-84, but when im running faster my cadence naturally increases and for a 10k im just under 90 and for 3k/5ks im over 90. Jim Walmsley almost never has a higher cadence than 80 yet he is a quite good runner. This is just some myth that was created by filming some Olympians but really has no bearing unless you're running 5 min miles.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

coming from a different angle --

can your brain find your hip joints? Can you *feel* them when you move? (hint - not in front, instead they're about a third of the way along your butt crease from the outside of leg).

This is where your power comes from, or should.

I ran (badly) for decades off my quads. Finding and strengthening the junction of muscles that make the hip hinge (through lots of slow, one-legged step-up work on a bench, focusing on using that joint only) has been a revelation.